OPINION: Angry dad rock and the love of God

This week as I drove south from Chattanooga I entered the billboard wonderland that is North Georgia. It was growing dark, the trip was getting boring, so I turned to Spotify for my daily mix. That’s a new thing to me, the daily playlist. I have only created two mixes on Spotify. One is a collection of Advent music, the other is a collection of classic rock. With only those playlists on my account, I was really curious to see what kind of mix Spotify would choose for me. That’s how I found myself listening to the dulcet tones of P.O.D, Skillet, and the Beastie Boys among others included in the Angry Dad Rock Playlist.

Then I passed a billboard that read: Every Knee Shall Bow. Even Democrats. A little pitchfork punctuated the final word. I have family and friends all across the political parties. Every time I see or hear something so partisan it catches my attention. Something in me rises up when those messages come my way because they’re always talking about someone I love and usually addressing someone in my congregation.

It really makes me wonder what the people who sponsored that billboard hope to accomplish with a message like that. Is it meant to reassure people whose family members vote that way that someday they might be saved? Is it a haughty declaration that those awful (in their view) people will confess Jesus is Lord at the point of Satan’s pitchfork just before they’re marched into hell? Are we to rejoice that they’ll confess Jesus at spearpoint? I don’t know what the hoped-for outcome of a message like that is. Nor do I understand how statements like that exist in harmony with Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 13:1. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Shortly after I drove past that billboard Spotify played a song by Ugly Kid Joe. The singer runs through a litany of things he hates before the chorus, “...and I get sick when I'm around; I can't stand to be around; I hate everything about you.” I can’t think of a more appropriate song to provide a soundtrack to the billboard I’d just driven past. If we’re charitable, we can say that the billboard’s authors didn’t intend to be hateful. Yet that’s the tone communicated.

Words like that make me wonder how much fear motivates that message. There seems to be a fear that God's love is finite, that loving people too much means we will somehow do harm. It's at odds with the song that many of us sing on Sunday when we declare that they'll know we are Christians by our love. Snark is not a fruit of the Holy spirit, it's not going to get people into church, it's not going to convince them that God loves them, and it's certainly not going to make people want to visit a community where that is the attitude thrown at them both implicitly and explicitly. It’s kin to the rotten fruits of the flesh, things like fear, anger, jealousy, arrogance, and greed among others.  Do signs like that indicate that everyone is welcome? Or do they lay out a significant unwelcome mat for people outside of the Christian world? Many of us first learned the words to John 3:16 without memorizing the passages immediately following it. God didn’t send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Jesus. If God didn’t send Jesus to condemn the world, there’s a chance we’re not sent to do that, either. Another of the bands on the Angry Dad Rock playlist was my absolute favorite group when I was younger. I can't listen to them anymore because the lead singer has unapologetically said ugly things about people I love. I can’t handle the dissonance between the words they sing and the words they speak. It’s too much, so I’ve tuned them out. Posturing that indicates that we have no interest in loving someone because they are different is antithetical to the kingdom of God. It shuts people off and out, and it's the opposite of what we are called to do to make disciples. What motivates people to move toward God, to visit a community of faith, and to choose to return? Snarky messages do not invite all the weary and heavy laden to pursue rest. They add to weariness. They shout loud and clear that some people fall outside the realm of God’s love.

I know that every time we lean into love as a motivational force people get nervous that we’ll let sin run unchecked. Looking to the example of Jesus puts that fear to rest. It was always after an encounter with God’s love embodied in the person of Jesus that people moved away from sin and into greater holiness. When we choose mean spirited snark to draw people outside of God’s love, we become, to borrow the words of another song from the playlist, our own worst enemy.

Mary Beth Eberle is the pastor at Grace UMC Jackson and the Director of the Wesley Foundation at UM Lambuth. Contact her at freerangepastors@gmail.com.